Patients who underwent robotic-assisted cardiac surgery had significant reductions in length of hospital stay, complications and mortality compared with patients who received nonrobotic surgery. However, robotic-assisted cardiac surgery cost significantly more than nonrobotic options.

The FDA announced another Class I recall for HeartWare, this time citing damaged alignment guides or connection pins in its ventricular assist system that potentially could cause the pump to stop. The recall affects 1,763 devices.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has agreed to fully reimburse the cost of drug-coated balloons for outpatient treatment of Medicare patients with peripheral artery disease, retroactive to April 1, 2015.

A meta-analysis of two randomized trials and two registries found the Watchman device was associated with significant improvements in hemorrhagic stroke, cardiovascular death and nonprocedural bleeding compared with warfarin in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. However, patients who received warfarin had fewer ischemic strokes, and the rates of all-cause stroke or systemic embolism were similar between the groups.

If hospitals and health systems reduce their use of cardiac telemetry in nonintensive care settings, they are unlikely to miss life-threatening arrhythmias, according to a single-center study. Life-threatening arrhythmias occurred in one of 2,645 patients.

While amyloid imaging is typically discussed with regard to diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, a team of French researchers, presenting at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) 2015 annual meeting, have found that amyloid scans of the heart can predict major cardiac events.

Patients with acute decompensated heart failure who had severe congestion during and after hospitalization had an increased risk of mortality and morbidity, according to a post-hoc analysis of two clinical trials.

After a median follow-up period of 3.8 years, drug-eluting stents were more effective than bare-metal stents and were associated with fewer instances of stent thrombosis, according to a meta-analysis of 51 randomized, controlled trials.